Текст книги "The Gambler and other stories. Poor People. The Landlady"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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favour which she did not often, however, bestow upon him. Once the General was so delighted to see her that he even burst into tears—rl really marvelled at him.

From the very first, Blanche began to plead his cause before me. Indeed, she waxed eloquent in his behalf; reminded me that she had betrayed the General for my sake, that she was almost engaged to him, had given him her word; that he had abandoned his family on her account, and, lastly, that I had been in his service and ought to remember that, and that I ought to be ashamed ... I said nothing while she rattled away at a terrific pax:e. At last I laughed: and with that the matter ended, that is, at first, she thought I was a fool: and at last came to the conclusion that I was a very nice and accommodating man. In fact, I had the good fortune to win in the end the complete approval of that excellent young woman. (Blanche really was, though, a very good-natured girl—^in her own way, of course; I had not such a high opinion of her at first.) "You're a kind and clever man," ^e used to say to me towards the end, "and . . . and . . . it's only a pity you are such a fool! You never, never, save anjrthingl"

"Un vrcd russe, im caknouk!" Several times she sent me to take the General for a walk about the streets, exactly as she might send her lapdog out with her footman. I took him, however, to the theatre, and to the Bal-Mabille, and to the restaurants. Blanche gave me the money for this, though the General had some of his own, and he was very fond of taking out his pocket-book before people. But I had almost to use force to prevent him from buying a brooch for seven hundred francs, by which he was fascinated in the Palais Ro37al and of which he wanted, at all costs, to make Blanche a present. But what was a brooch of seven hundred frsincs to her? The General hadn't more than a thousand francs altogether. I could never find out where he had got that money from. I imagine it was from Mr. Astley, especially as the latter had paid their bill at the hotel. As for the General's attitude to me all this time, I believe that he did not even guess at my relations with Blanche. Though he had heard vaguely that I had won a fortune, yet he probably supposed that I was with Blemche in the capacity of a private secretary or even a servant. Anyway, he always, as before, spoke to be condescendingly, auliioritatively, and even sometimes fell to scolding me. One morning he amused Blanche and me unmensely at breakfast. He was not at all ready to take offence, but suddenly he was huffy with me—why?—I don't

know to this day. No doubt he did not know himself. In fact, he made a speech without a beginning or an end, a bdtcms-rompus, shouted that I was an impudent boy, that he would give me a lesson . . . that he would let me know it . . . and so on. But no one could make out anjrthing from it. Blanche went off into peals of laughter. At last he was somehow appeased and taken outfor a walk. I noticed sometimes, however, that he grew sad, that he was regretting someone and something, he was missing something in spite of Blanche's presence. On two such occasions he began tafliing to me of himself, but could not express himself clearly, alluded to his times in the army, to his deceased wife, to his family affairs, to his property. He would stumble upon some phrase—and was delighted with it and would repeat it a hundred times a day, thdugh perhaps it expressed neither his feelings nor his thoughts. I tried to talk to him about his children: but he turned off the subject with incoherent babble, and passed hurriedly to another topic: "Yes, yes, my children, you are right, my children!" Only once he grew sentimental —we were with him at the theatre: ' "Those unhappy children 1'' he began suddenly. "Yes, sir, those un—happy clmdren 1" And several times afterwards that evening he repeated the same words: "unhappy children 1" Once, when I began to speak of Polina, he flew into a frenzy. "She's an ungrateful girl," he cried. "She's wicked and ungrateful! She has disgraced her family. If there were laws here I would make her mind her p's and q's. Yes, indeed, yes, indeed!" As for De Grieux, he could not bear even to hear his name: "He has been the ruin of me," he would say, "he has robbed me, he has destroyed me! He has been my nightmare for the last two years! He has haunted my dreams for whole months I It's, it's, it's . . . Oh, never speak to me of him!"

I saw there was an understanding between them, but, as usual, I said nothing. Blanche announced the news to me first—^it was just a week before we parted: "II a du chance," she babbled. "Granny really is ill this time, and certainly will die. Mr. Astley has sent a telegram. You must admit that the General is her heir, anjnvay, and even if he were not, he would not interfere with me in an5^thing. In the first place, he has his pension, and in the second place, he will live in a back room and will be perfectly happy. I shall be 'Madame le G6n6rale'. I shall get into a good set" (Blanche was continually dreaming of this), "in the end I shall be a Russian landowner, j'tmrai im chateau, des mmtjiks, et puis j'awrai topjours mo

"Well, what if he begins to be jealous, begins to insist ... on goodness knows what^—do you understand?"

"Oh, no, now, non, non! How dare he! I have taken precautions, you needn't be afraid. I have even naade him sign some lOUs for Albert. The least thing—and he will be arrested; and he won't dare!"

"Well, marry him . . ."

The marriage was celebrated without any great p>omp; it was a quiet family affair. Albert was invited and a few other intimate friends. Hortense, Cleopatra and company were studiously excluded. The bridegroom was extremely interested in his position. Blanche herself tied his cravat with her own hands, and pomaded his head: and in his swallow-tailed coat with his white tie he looked tres ommne il faut.

"II est pomiamt ires comme il ftmt," Blanche herself observed to me, coming out of the General's room, as though the idea that the General was tres comme U fmd was a surprise even to her. Though I assisted at the whole affair as an idle spectator, yet I took so little interest in the details that I have to a great extent forgotten the course of events. I only remember that Blanche turned out not to be called "de Cominges", and her mamma not to be Ja veutue "Cominges", but "du Placet". Why they had been both "de Cominges" till then, I don't know. But the General remained very much pleased with that, and "du Placet" pleased him, in fact, better than "de Cominges". On the morning of the wedding, fully dressed for the part, he kept walking to and fro in the drawing-room, repeating to himself with a grave and important air, "Mile. Blanche du Placet! Blanche du Placet, du Placet! . . . and his countenance beamed with a certain complacency. At church, before the moire, and at the wedding breakfast at home, he was not oniy^^jByful but proud. There was a change in both of them. Blanche, too, had an air of peculiar dignity.

"I shall have to behave myself quite differently now," she said to me, perfectly seriously: "mads vois-tu, I never thought of one very horrid thing: I even fancy, to this day, I can't learn my surname. Zagoryansky, Zagozj^nsky, Madame la Wn^rale de Sago—Sago, ces diables de noms russes, enfin madame h gdndrale a quartwze consomnis! Comme c'est agreaible, n'est-ce pas?"

At last we parted, and Blanche, that silly Blanche, positively shed tears when she said good-bye to me. "Tu itais bon enfani," she said, whimpering. "Je te croyais bite et tu en anms I'dr.

but it suits you." And, pressing my hand at parting, she suddenly cried, "Attends!" rushed to her boudoir and, two minutes later, brought me a banknote for two thousand francs. That I should never have believed possible I "It may be of use to you. You may be a very learned owbchitei, but you are an awfully stupid man. I am not going to give you more than two thousand, for you'll lose it gambling, anjnvay. Well, good-bye 1 Noiis serons Umjcmrs bon amis, and if you win, be sure to come to me ageiin, 0t ti* seras hemrewc!"

I had five hundred francs left of my own. I had besides a splendid watch that cost a thousand francs, some diamond studs, and so on, so that I could go on a good time longer without anxiety. I am sta3dng in this little town on purpose to collect myself, and, above all, I am waiting for Mr. Astley. I have learnt for a fact that he will pass through the town and stay here for twenty-four hours on business. I shall find out about everything: and then—^then I shall go straight to Homburg. I am not going to Roulettenburg; not till next year anyway. They say it is a bad omen to try your luck twice running at the same tables; and Homburg is the real place for play.

CHAPTER XVII

IT is a year and eight months since I looked at these notes, and only now in sadness and dejection it has occurred to me to read them through. So I stopped then at my going to Homburg. My God! With what a light heart, comparatively speaking, I wrote those last lines! Though not with a light heart exactly, but with a sort of self-confidence, with undaunted hopes I Had I any doubt of m5^self ? And now more than a year and a half has passed, and I am, to my own mind, far worse than a beggar 1 Yes, what is being a beggar? A beggar is nothing! I have simply ruined myself! However, there is nothing I can compare myself with, and there is no need to give myself a moral lecture! Nothing could be stupider than moral reflections at this date! Oh, self-satisfied people, with what proud satisfaction these prattlers prepare to deliver their lectures! If only they knew how thoroughly I understand the loathsomeness of my present position, they would not be able to bring their tongues to reprimand me. Why, what, what can they tell me that I do not

know? And is that the point? The point is t hat^oa£.tanurf the wheel, and all will be changedTand those very moralists will be the first (I am convinced of that) to come up to congratulate me with friendly jests. And they will not all turn away from me as they do now. But, hang them all I What am I now? Zero. What may I be to-morrow ? To-morrow I may rise from the dead and begin to live again 1 There are stiU the makings of a man in me.

I did, in fact, go to Homburg then, but . . . afterwards I went to Roulettenburg again, and to Spa. I have even been in Baden, where I went as valet to the councillor Gintse, a scoundrel, who was my master here. Yes, I was a lackey for five whole months! I got a place immediately after coming out of prison. (I was sent to prison in Roulettenburg for a debt I made here.) Someone, I don't know who, paid my debt—who was it? Was it Mr. Astley? Pohna? I don't know, but the debt was paid; two hundred thalers in all, and I was set free. What could I do? I entered the service of this Gintse. He is a young man and frivolous, he Uked to be idle, and I could read and write in three languages. At first I went into his service as a sort of secretary at tiiirty guldens a month; but I ended by becoming a regular valet: he had not the means to keep a secretary; and he lowered my wages; I had nowhere to go, 1 remained—and in that way became a lackey by my own doing. I had not enough to eat or to drink in his service, but on the other hand, in five months I saved up seventy gulden. One evening in Baden, however, I aimounced to him that I intended parting from him; the same evening I went to roulette. Oh, how my heart beat! No, it was not money that I wanted. All tbat I wanted then was that next day all these Gintses, all these ober-kelhters, all these magnificent Baden ladies—that they might be all talking about me, repeating my story, wondering at me, admiring me, praising me, and doing homage to my new success. All these are childish dreams and desires, but . . . who knows, perhaps I should meet Polina again, too, I should tell her, and she would see that I was above all these stupid ups and downs of fate. . . . Oh, it was not money that was dear to me I I knew I should fling it away to some Blanche again and should drive in Paris again for three weeks with a pair of my own horses, costing sixteen thousand francs. I know for certain that I am not mean; I beUeve that I am not even a spendthrift– and yet with what a tremor, with what a thrill at my heart, I hear the croupier's cry: trente et tm. rouge, impair et passe.

or: quaire, noir, pair et manqi*e! With what avidity I look at the gambling table on which louis d'or, friedrichs d'or and thalers lie scattered: on the piles of gold when they are scattered from the croupier's shovel like glowing embers, or at the piles of silver a yard high that lie round the wheel. Even on my way to the gambling hall, as soon as I hear, two rooms away, the clink of the scattered money I cdmost go into convulsions.

Ohl that evening, when I took my seventy gulden to tlie gambling table, was remarkable too. I began witti ten gulden, staking them again on passe. I have a prejudice ia favour of passe. I lost. I had sixty gulden left in silver money; I thought a little and chose zero. I began staking five gulden at a time on zero; at the third turn the wheel stopped at zero; I almost died of joy when I received one hundred and seventy-five gulden; I had not been so delighted when I won a hundred thousand gulden. I immediately staked a hundred gulden on roi4>ge —^it won; the two hundred on rowg-e —it won; the whole of the four hundred on n-oir —^it won; the whole eight hundred on manque —^it won; altogether with what I had before it made one thousand seven hundred gulden—and that in less than five minutes! Yes, at moments like that one forgets all one's former failures 1 Why, I had gained this by risking more than life itself, I dared to risk it, and—there I was again, a man among men.

I took a room at the hotel, locked myself in and sat till three o'clock coimting over my money. In the morning I woke up, no longer a lackey. I determined the same day to go to Hom-burg: I had not been a lackey or been in prison Qiere. Half an hour before my train left, I set off to stake on two hazards, no more, and lost fifteen hundred florins. Yet I went to Hom-burg all the same, and I have been here for a month. . . .

I am living, of course, in continual anxiety. I play for the tiniest stakes, and I keep waiting for something, calculating, standing for whole days at the gambling table and watching the play; I even dream of playing—but I feel that in all this, I have, as it were, grown stiff and wooden, as though I had sunk into a muddy swamp. I gather this from my feeling when I met Mr. Astiey. We had not seen each other since that time, and we met by accident. This was how it happened: I was walking in the gardens and reckoning that now I was almost without money, but that I had fifty gulden—and that I had, moreover, three days before paid all I owed at the hotel. And so it was possible for me to go once more to roulette—^if I were to win an}rthing, I might be able to go on playing; if I lost I should have

to get a lackey's place again, if I did not come across Russians in want of a tutor. Absorbed in these thoughts, I went my daily walk, across the park and the forest in the adjoining prindpaJity.

Sometimes I used to walk Uke this for four hours at a time, and go back to Homburg hungry and tired. I had scarcely gone out of the gardens in the park, when suddenly J saw on one of the seats Mr. Astley. He saw me before I saw him, and called to me. I sat down beside him. Detecting in him a certain dignity of manner, I instantly moderated my delight; though I was awfully delighted to see him.

"And so you are here! I thought I should meet you," he said to me. "Don't trouble yourself to tell me your story; I know, I know all about it; I know every detail of your life during this last year and eight months."

"Bah! What a watch you keep on your old friends!" 1 answered. "It is very creditable in you not to forget. . . . Stay, though, you have given me an idea. Wcisn't it you bought me out of prison at Roulettenburg where I was imprisoned for debt for two hundred gulden? Some unknown person paid it for me."

"No, oh no; it was not I who bought you out when you were ill prison at Roulettenburg for a debt of two hundred gulden. But I knew that you were imprisoned for a debt of two hundred gulden."

"Then you know who did pay my debt?"

"Oh, no, I can't say that I know who bought you out."

"Strange; I don't know any of our Russians; besides, the Russians here, I imagine, would not do it; at home in Russia the orthodox may buy out other orthodox Christians. I thought it must have been some eccentric Englishman who did it as a freak."

Mr. Astley listened to me with some surprise. 1 believe he had expected to find me dejected and crushed.

"I am very glad, however, to find that you have quite maintained your independence of spirit and even your cheerfuhiess," he pronounced, with a rather disagreeable air.

"That is, you are chafing inwardly with vexation at my not being crushed and humiliated," I said, laughing.

He did not at once understand, but when he imderstood, he smiled.

"I like your observations: I recognise in those words my clever, enttiusiastic and, at the same time, cynical old friend; only Russians can combine in themselves so many opposites at

the same time. It is true, a man likes to see even his best friend humiliated; a great part of friendship rests on humiliation. But in the present case I assure you that I am genuinely glad that you are not dejected. Tell me, do you intend to give up gambling?"

"Oh, damn! I shall give it up at once as soon as I . . ." "As soon as you have won back what you have lost! Just what I thought; you needn't say any more—I know—^you have spoken unawares, and so you have spoken the truth. Tell me, l^ve you any occupation except gambUng?" "No, none. . . ."

He began cross-examining me. I knew nothing. I scarcely looked into the newspapers, and had literally not opened a single book all that time. ""'

■'"""You've grown rusty," he observed. "You have not only given up life, all your interests, private and public, the duties lof a man and a citizen, your friends (and you really had friends) , i —^you have not only given up your objects, such as they were, all but gambling—^you have even given up your memories. I remember you at an intense and ardent moment of your life; but I am sure you have forgotten all the best feelings you had then; your dreams, your most genuine desires now do not rise i above pair, impmr, rouge, noir, the twelve middle numbers, 'and so on, I am sure!"

"Enough, Mr. Astley, please, please don't remind me," 1 cried with vexation, almost with anger, "let me tell you, I've forgotten absolutely nothing; but I've only for a time put everything out of my mind, even my memories, until I can make a radical improvement in my circvunstances; then . . . then you will see, I shall rise again from the dead!"

"You will be here still in ten years' time," he said. "I bet you I shall remind you of this on this very seat, if I'm alive." "Well, that's enough," I interrupted impatiently; "and to prove to you that I am not so forgetful of the past, let me ask: where is Miss Polina now? If it was not you who got me out of prison, it must have been her doing. I have had no news of her of any sort since that time."

"No, oh no, I don't believe she did buy you out. She's in Switzerland now, and you'll do me a great favour if you leave off asking about Miss Polina," he said resolutely, and even with some anger.

"That means that she has wounded you very much!" I laughed with displeasure.

"Miss Polina is of all people deserving of resp>ect the very best, but I repeat—you will do me a great favour if you cease questioning me concerning Miss Polina. You never knew her: and her name on your lips I regard as an insult to my moral feelings."

"You don't say so! you are wrong, however; besides, what have I to talk to you about except that, tell me that? Why, all our memories reaUy amount to that! Don't be uneasy, though; I don't want to know your private secret affairs. ... I am only, interested, so to say, in Miss Polina's external afiaiis. That you could tell me in a couple of words."

"Certainly, on condition that with those two words all is over. Miss Polina was ill for a long time; she's ill even now. For some time she stayed with my mother and sister in the north of England. Six months ago, her grandmother—^you remember that madwoman?—died and left her, personally, a fortune of seven thousand pounds. At the present time Miss Polina is travelling with tiie family of my married sister. Her little brother and sister, too, were provided for by their grandmother's will, and are at school in London. The General, her stepfather, died a month ago in Paris of a stroke. Mile. Blanche treated him well, but succeeded in getting possession of all he received from the grandmother. ... I believe that's all."

"And De Grieux? Is not he travelling in Switzerland, too?"

"No, De Grieux is not travelling in Switzerland: and I don't know where De Grieux is; besides, once for all, I wam you to avoid such insinuations and ungentlemanly coupUng of names, or you will certainly have to answer for it to me."

"What! in spite of our friendly relations in the past?"

"Yes, in spite of our friendly relations in the past."

"I beg a thousand pardons, Mr. Astley. But allow me, though: there is nothing insulting or ungentlemanly about it; I am not blaming Miss Polina for an5^ing. Besides—a Frenchman and a Russian yovmg lady, speaking generally—it's a combination, Mr. Astley, which is beyond your or my explaining or fully comprehending."

"If you will not mention the name of De Grieux in company with another name, I should like you to explain what you mean by the expression of 'the Frenchman and the Russian young lady'. What do you mean by that 'combination'? Why the Frenchman exactly and why the Russian yovmg lady?"

"You see you are interested. But that's a long story, Mr. Astley. You need to understand many things first. But it

is an important question, however absurd it may seem at first sight, lie Frenchman, -Mr. Astley, is the product of a finished beautiful tradition. You, as a Briton, may not agree with this; I, as a Russian, do not either, from envy maybe; but our young ladies may be of a different opinion. You may think Racine artificial, affected and perfumed; probably you won't even read him. I, too, think him artificial, affected and perfumed—from one point of view even absurd; but he is charming, Mr. Astley, and, what is more, he is a great poet, whether we like it or not. The national type of Frenchman, or, rather, of Parisian, had been moulded into elegant forms while we were still bears. The Revolution inherited &e traditions of the aristocracy. Now even the vulgarest Frenchman has manners, modes of address, expressions and even thoughts, of perfectly elegant form, though his own initiative, his own soul and heart, have had no part in the creation of that form; it has all come to him through inheritance. Well, Mr. Astley, I must inform you now that there is not a creature on the eajfii more confiding, and more candid than a good, clean and not too sophisticated Russian girl. De Grieux, appearing in a peculiar role, masquerading, can conquer her heart with extraordinary ease; he has elegance of form, Mr. Astley, and the young lady takes this form for his individual soul, as the natural form of his soul and his heart, and not as an external garment, which has come to him by inheritance. Though it will greatly displease you, I must tell you that Englishmen are for the most part awkward and inelegant, and Russians are rather quick to detect beauty, and are eager for it. But to detect beauty of soul and originality of character needs incomparably more independence and freedom than is to be found in our women, above all in our yoimg ladies—and of course ever so much more experience. Miss Polina—^forgive me, the word is spoken and one can't take it back—needs a long, long time to bring herself to prefer you to the scoundrel De Grieux. She thinks highly of you, becomes your friend, opens all her heart to you; but yet the hateful scoundrel, the base and petty money-grubber, De Grieux, will still dominate her heart. Mere obstinacy and vanity, so to say, will maintain his supremacy, because at one time this De Grieux appeared to her with the halo of an elegant marquis, a disillusioned liberal, who is supposed to have ruined himself to help her family and her frivolous stepfather. All these shams have been discovered later on. But the fact that they have been discovered makes no difference: an}nvay, what she